Generally, in the dye image formation method by silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material processing, imagewise exposure is followed by reaction of an oxidized p-phenylenediamine color developing agent and a dye forming coupler to form a dye image. In this method, color reproduction is normally based on subtractive color process, in which cyan, magenta and yellow dye images, corresponding to red, green and blue light exposure, are formed in respective light-sensitive layers. In recent years, it has been the common practice to use development at high temperature and simplify the processing process to shorten the processing time in the formation of such dye images. Particularly, to shorten the developing time, it is very important to increase the rate of color development. The rate of color development is affected by two factors: one is the silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material and the other is the color developer. In the former case, the grain composition of the silver halide emulsion used significantly affects the rate of development; in the latter case, the conditions and composition of the color developer significantly affect the rate of development.
Since it is more rapidly developable than a color photographic light-sensitive material comprising a silver halide emulsion containing silver bromide or silver iodide, such as a silver chlorobromide, silver chloroiodobromide or silver iodobromide emulsion, and is free of accumulation of bromide ions and iodide ions, which hampers development, in the color developer, a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material wherein the light-sensitive silver halide emulsion substantially comprises silver chloride (hereinafter referred to as a silver chloride color photographic light-sensitive material) is very useful as a light-sensitive material for rapid processing.
Recently, there have been increasing demands for rapid processing of color photographic light-sensitive materials. To meet this requirement, color photographic light-sensitive materials have been proposed which incorporate a silver halide emulsion based mainly on silver chloride for high speed films for picture taking. The present inventors made investigations using a color photographic light-sensitive material based mainly on silver chloride, which is suitable to such rapid processing, and found that it has the following drawbacks.
First, when a color developer containing 3-methyl-4-amino-N-ethyl-N-.beta.-hydroxyethylaniline sulfate (CD-4), a conventional color developing agent, is used to process the light-sensitive material, the fogging density increases because of the excess developing activity of CD-4.
Second, when a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material for picture taking based mainly on silver chloride wherein the total amount of silver coated is as high as over 2 g/m.sup.2 is continuously processed, silver sludge occurs in the color developer tank. In other words, in comparison with silver iodobromide emulsions used in conventional light-sensitive materials with a high amount of silver coated, emulsions based mainly on silver chloride are more liable to silver sludge, which poses a major problem in practical application.
This problem has recently become increasingly serious since it is a recent trend to reduce the amount of replenisher from the viewpoint of cost reduction and suppression of environmental pollution.